


I Buried It

by MissMoe



Series: Recto/Verso [5]
Category: Hyakujitsu no Bara | Maiden Rose
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Drug Use, Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 09:50:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15555120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMoe/pseuds/MissMoe
Summary: Klaus is riddled with guilt, both past and present.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the Recto/Verso Series, I have always presented Taki’s POV first, followed by Klaus’s, but for this particular set of POVs I am departing from that and giving you Klaus’s take on things first for several reasons. The title for this fic, “I Buried It,” is a direct reference to something that Klaus actually says, and the events of Inariya’s Garland of Wisteria doujinshis, which are seen through Klaus’s eyes and covered in this fic, take place prior to the events of Thorn Crown, which are told from Taki’s POV in the next chapter. It just seemed to make more sense to me to let Klaus speak first. 
> 
> Klaus’s recollection of events while he’s recovering from his wounds in the basement is understandably fuzzy. In my initial reading of the Thorn Crown doujinshis, I had assumed that Klaus had no memory at all of what he did to Taki, but both Georgia and Tenkamchi have pointed out to me that Klaus was indeed aware of his actions even though he was doped up on morphine. The newer chapters of Hyakujitsu no Bara in Hertz magazine seem to substantiate this (although I haven’t seen the scanlations for Chapter Three yet). Thank you Georgia and Ten for your insight!

I’m in a bad fucking mood. My right shoulder is a pus-filled stinking mess under the bandages, I’m in a shithole of a basement and, worst of all, I’m stuck with that Gloomy Gus, Suguri, who hates my guts and rightly so. He tosses me a brown paper packet holding a half-loaf of rye, some dried sausage, and a lump of real butter. Shit. It's wartime and he gives me real butter? Don’t tell me Suguri’s playing nice with me for once. Maybe he loves me. He tells me to get some food into my stomach before I dose up on antibiotics, otherwise I’ll be puking blood and, oh, by the way, he’s swapping out the good stuff for plain old aspirin. Sheesh. He does still hate me. Before he can ramble on more about me shitting my pants as an added bonus, my body seizes up again, the pain rolling like a giant wave through me and drenching me in a cold sweat. I double over on the bed, shaking uncontrollably, while he quickly jabs a needle into my vein.

“I don’t like this,” Suguri grumbles, “but I think you’d be better off with the morphine.”

Yeah, he loves me. In mere seconds my insides unfurl like the petals of a rose in the warmth of the sun and I fall back onto the mattress, my head swimming, my body floating on an ocean of druggy bliss. It makes me think of Taki, my king of roses, as rare as the one I plucked in my grandfather’s garden. I think of Taki prone before me, all spread out and trembling, the delicate pink of his tight puckered hole just waiting to open for me like a flower. I see him, that look in his eyes that always says “yes” even when he’s screaming “no.” I buried it, that rarest rose from my grandfather’s garden. It was too beautiful; I couldn’t stand to see it lose its perfection, so I buried it. I buried it like I buried my fallen comrades shot down from the sky, trails of black smoke following them to their graves. I don’t want to bury my master. I plucked him, took his purity, broke that holy vessel, but I don’t want to bury him. Not if I can help it.

“Suguri,” I murmur as my thoughts scatter every which way. It’s like herding cats, or butterflies, these damn thoughts. “You’ve got to get Taki out of here. He’ll want to stay by me…insist on trying to do something to help. Even if he’s stubborn or gives you orders...you can’t tell him about my condition. Lie to him, don’t tell him anything…send him away.” 

“And you think Taki-sama will listen to me?” comes Suguri’s indignant reply.

He’s clearly miffed by Taki’s recalcitrant nature, but that’s not my problem to solve right now. I’ve got my own problems to think about. “Don’t you get it?” I groan, my head going underwater even as I cling to consciousness, and babble on, “I don’t want him to see me like this! If I…maybe…if I go into a frenzy and get so I don’t know what I’m doing…then if his body’s within reach…I don’t want to think about what I’ll do to him. I know what I’m capable of better than anyone...please…don’t let me down.”

What I had done to Taki in the shed…I’m so very afraid I would do it again, and the look on Suguri’s face tells me that he’s thinking the same thing. It was only after I had carried Taki to Suguri, naked and bloodied and wrapped in my coat, that the truth had come out, the truth about what I had really done. Taki had never told me who he was to his people, what he truly represented. It was all such bullshit, such superstitious nonsense, but Taki’s people took it all so seriously, and so did he I came to learn too late. He never told me and I never knew it until then. I never realized I had plucked the Emperor’s sacred flower and, in a sense, buried him in ignorance. When I heard him singing to me by the river’s edge, calling me out of the dark forest and into the light, I realized he had risen from the earth, my flower, pushed his way up from the dirt I had piled over him, face to the sun, and was pulling me to him. I had not been able to save my comrades. I buried them and in the ground is where they remained. I buried that rarest rose from my grandfather’s garden, but my king of roses, the _shinka_ , could not be marred by my actions. Though I buried it, it remained perfect. Nothing could alter its beauty, not even me and my hunger could destroy it. He sang to me and lifted me from my grave, brought me back from the dead.

Suguri, though, is not satisfied with the mere prospect of keeping a ravenous wolf like me from Taki. He wants something in return for not exposing my shame. “Twenty-one grams. Exactly which grains of that paltry amount brought you back here?” he asks.

I can’t even fathom what he means. The old man speaks in riddles. “The hell are you saying?” I mumble. “Twenty-one grams?”

“Don’t you know?” he replies. “It’s the amount your body loses once you stop breathing. It’s the weight of your soul.” 

Jesus Christ. The man is nuts. And then I realize he’s both nuts AND jealous, because he, the great Suguri-san, had known Taki since fucking forever, he’s been his physician and minder and was closer to Taki than anyone else in the whole goddamn country, so how could a foreign scumbag like me occupy any place in Taki’s heart? I can’t believe it. I cannot fucking believe it. So I recount a few choice slice-of-life snippets from the year I spent with Taki at Luckenwalde when Taki was far from the prying eyes of his people, far from Suguri's watchful oversight, silly stupid shit like Taki’s favorite food there, the honey and apples I shared with him, the tea and coffee drunk together, eating that last piece of bread with cheese and cream, even best of all, just sitting in silence with him. They had been mundane, ordinary things, but to Taki they were all new and special because he had experienced them with me. Me. _I_ was the one he had met under the tree that day in the Imperial Gardens, and we had found each other again at Luckenwalde. He had chosen me then, and he chose me again years later. He will always choose me, no matter who tries to stand in his way, and that is why I give Suguri what he wants, this precious view into Taki’s true heart.

***

It’s no good, though. I told Suguri what he wanted to hear and he still let Taki into my room and now I’m screwed. I can smell Taki even before I hear him, feel him, see him. It was his scent that made me know who he was back at Luckenwalde, made me know that he was that very same boy I had held in my arms years before, that boy who couldn’t reach the flowers by himself and who had asked me to give myself to him. It had shocked me to hear those words from the mouth of a child, but he had been so serious. And then I saw him again, dancing for the Emperor, the garland I had plucked for him dangling from his headdress, and my whole world had suddenly filled with color as surely as a great void had opened inside my heart, a void that only Taki could ever fill. What a sick joke that was! To see a thing of such consummate beauty, but never to touch it, hold it, own it, because by plucking the rose, you destroy its beauty. You kill it, wreck it, ruin it.

I do it again. That very thing I don’t want to do in my mind and in my heart, I do it with my body. At first I simply breathe him in, revel in his sweet scent, let it soak into my brain, my bones. The intoxication is maddening and I lose it, even as Suguri doses me again with morphine, my body will not be denied its desire. When I hear Taki send Suguri out of the room, I am in such a rage. How could they do this? Suguri? Taki? How could they both do this to me? They both know what I am and yet…Suguri closes the door behind him, knowing that he’s left Taki with a wild beast, and Taki, you fool of a boy! Did you really think you could control the wolf inside me? I can’t even speak. I can only grunt and growl like the animal that I am, the drugs rendering me speechless, incoherent, capable only of acting on instinct, and my instinct is to devour, to fill that void and sate my hunger. Everything my body craves is right in front of me, beneath me—small and pale and panting—and I will have it. All I see is red, all I feel is anger and betrayal and raging need, all I smell is _him_. You should have stayed away, Taki. You should have listened, obeyed, bent to my wishes, but you wouldn’t, so now I will break you. I will bury you once more.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the things I love most about HnB is Inariya’s use of symbolism and metaphor. Klaus suffers deeply from what we would call PTSD, though he stubbornly hides his trauma behind snarky humor and sarcasm, culminating in outbursts of violence directed at Taki, who is the symbolic rose that he buries. Lady Macbeth, as we all know, couldn’t wash that damn spot out to save her life, and Klaus cannot escape his own tragic past. Time and again, Inariya gives us images of Klaus with visible wounds by way of bandaged limbs, scratches on his face, etc., physical manifestations that mirror the psychological and emotional damage festering inside him. Is it any wonder, then, that things go from bad to worse?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taki defies both Suguri and Klaus and pays for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This POV includes scenes from Inariya’s Thorn Crown I-IV, which supplement Hjakujitsu no Bara and take place between Volume II and III of HnB, specifically events which occur just after the Eurotean train/No Man’s Land incident.

He almost died, my one and only knight, my golden-eyed wolf-god. Berkut hit his mark four times on that Eurotean whore’s train but Klaus survived the onslaught, saved by the small textbook he had slipped into the breast pocket of his jacket, the diminutive shield that came between those cold bullets and his flaming heart, between this mortal coil and certain death. I had written “Danke schön” in that textbook as a token of my appreciation for Klaus’s protection and guidance during those days at Luckenwalde, when I was so alone and despised in a foreign country. But those miserable days had also brought unexpected happiness: meals that Klaus prepared for me out of the kindness of his heart, hot tea sweetened with rose hips and honey, blistered feet bathed by impossibly large and gentle hands. I will never forget those days, both the misery and the happiness, and in so many ways my life has been an unending repetition of the very same things experienced before and after Luckenwalde. High and low, darkness and light, joy and despair, love and hate; can one exist without the other?

From the moment I met him in the Imperial Gardens and gazed into those golden eyes for the very first time, I knew my world would never be the same. I was only eight, already well-educated and able to speak in a foreign tongue, but I was stupidly naïve and full of myself. “Take me over to those flowers,” I said to him, as if I were ordering about a servant. And then when he lifted me easily into his arms and plucked a wisteria blossom for my headdress, I had the iron balls to ask him, “Will you give yourself to me?” I still cannot believe I uttered those brash words! Such hubris! Though it makes me blush to recall it now, I felt no shame then, not even a shred of it. The shame…it all came later.

I travelled West to learn the military strategies and master the technology of the “enemy” nations, at least, that is what I told my family, my advisors, my uncle who was also the supreme Emperor. But had I really been seeking something else, something far more potent and meaningful and selfish? Wasn’t I looking for _him_? Wasn’t I chasing after my wolf-god just as my founding ancestor had done so many generations ago? It was sheer madness, but Suguri had told me when I was still a child that this madness runs in the blood of the Reizen line. I believed him because I had seen it with my own eyes: moths drawn inexorably towards the light of the gas lamps and immolating themselves. I believe Suguri now with even more conviction for I have burned myself again and again, offered my body, my flesh, to the fire that is Klaus instead of keeping myself an icy virgin for the gods of my people. He draws me to him and I am helpless to turn aside, to turn him away. I couldn’t turn him away: not that night in our room at Luckenwalde when he touched and kissed me so intimately; not when he met me at the rail station before my deportation and made my heart both sink and soar; not in the train car and in the wheat field when he made love to me over and over; not even after I was so rude to him before his knighthood ceremony, when I gave him the cold shoulder before I went to see my sister Yura and my uncle surprised me with a visit. My three little half-sisters had barged in, chattering with excitement about the guardian spirit with the golden eyes seen wandering about the Imperial Gardens and, again, I could do nothing but fly to him like a moth to the flame. I left my sisters and uncle behind and, there he was, standing under the very tree that had brought us together all those years ago. I wasn’t a child anymore—I was a twenty-year-old division commander!—but he lifted me into his arms just the same and it was as if time had looped all the way back to the beginning, like a ribbon circling around and fusing into one unbroken ring. Or like a snake eating its own tail, devouring itself.

***

He almost died, my heart and soul, my loyal soldier, and now Suguri is telling me that I am not allowed to be alone with him. I am livid. Am I not Suguri’s superior commanding officer? I ignore his words of warning, even though Suguri is staunchly on my side and has been both my physician and caretaker, my trusted gunner in Murakamo and Onokami, but I am desperate to be with Klaus. My men all saw me touch Klaus down by the riverbank in No Man’s Land. They know I’m as unclean as anyone can be but they look the other way because to them, I am still the _shinka_ , I am still the flower of the Son of Heaven, I am still a holy vessel. But they don’t know what Suguri knows. He knows all my disgusting secrets, the things I’ve done behind closed doors and between the sheets, all the sacred vows I’ve broken…he has seen my wounds, the teeth marks on my wrist, the bruises on my body, the blood between my thighs. What scrap of purity can he hope to salvage in me by denying me access to Klaus now? I am ruined, but my heart is still beating and so is Klaus’s, and he is howling for me. I can hear, feel his suffering thrumming through my veins even before I enter the basement room. Yes, it’s madness. Yes, I am mad for my knight.

The room is dark and windowless and it takes several moments for my eyes to adjust to the dimness.

“He’s overly sensitive to light,” Suguri explains.

And then I see him and my heart leaps into my throat. Klaus is shirtless and lying on his side on the bed, the bandages on his shoulder, arm, and chest mottled with blood, his left wrist bound to a bedpost as if he were a rabid dog kept on a chain. The sight of him takes me back to an incident in my childhood, when a favorite dog of mine had been put down for biting someone. I had loved that dog, a hunting dog that had always been faithful and obedient to me. Surely it had bitten for a reason, surely it had been provoked, but despite my pleading they had shot the dog anyway. I was powerless to stop them, but I am not powerless now. I run to the side of the bed, reaching for his bound wrist. 

“The captain requested it,” Suguri intones gravely. “The pain of his festering wounds is unimaginable. Our strongest painkillers aren’t enough, so we’ve had to knock him out with morphine. He’s not really asleep…just unconscious…he’s better off this way.” 

 _Oh, Klaus_ …I gently touch his hair, caress it with my fingers, and he twitches, suddenly rolls over onto his back with a scream, his body convulsing. I throw myself on top of him to hold him still. “Klaus?” I call into his contorted face, but he continues to groan and struggle against the bindings. Suguri is trying to pull me away, reminding me that Klaus isn’t awake. He’s not awake, but in his delirium, Klaus bites me on my neck. Suguri is in a panic, but I fling my arm out and swat him away, shout for him to leave us alone. Suguri refuses, no surprise there.

“Please understand,” I beg, “Klaus is my only knight.” I cradle Klaus’s head in the crook of my elbows and kiss his hair. “It’s my duty and right to see him through…everything.” I am ready to burst into tears when I feel the bed dip down and then give a creak as Suguri grabs Klaus’s injured right arm and administers another shot of morphine.

“The captain gave the order not to allow you in here no matter what,” Suguri mutters. He looks utterly defeated. “And yet…I brought you here. I just had to…” With an exhausted pass of his hand across his furrowed brows, Suguri gets up and trudges to the door, saying, “I’ll leave you two alone.”

“Thank you,” I reply. As soon as Suguri is gone, I untie Klaus from the bedpost, my heart is racing with adrenalin, I don’t even know what I’m thinking; I’m not thinking at all, I just want to soothe him, take away his pain. I had done this before; after Hasebe had beaten Klaus to within an inch of his life, I had held Klaus in my arms all night and kept him safe. I will do this again for Klaus. I remove my boots and lay beside him, stretching my body against his, my face tucked against the feverish heat of his shoulder. I am so tired and broken, as tired and broken as my knight, but beneath the ache of my shattered heart I know that I am happy once more. We are together, two broken men, but we are together, and perhaps all the remaining pieces of us when put together will be enough to make one complete soul.

I feel Klaus’s hand move and then he’s on top of me, and his eyes, his eyes…it’s not him. He’s like a man possessed by a demon, and this demon wants to destroy me. “Don’t, Klaus,” I shout, “your wounds will—” He’s not listening to me, doesn’t hear me. He bites me again instead. _My dog, they put my dog down for biting_ , I think to myself. He tears my shirt open, pulls off my trousers, shoves me onto my hands and knees. Why can’t I move? I know that Suguri is right outside the door. Why can’t I call out for help? I don’t call out for help, I don’t move to defend myself, even as Klaus begins rutting up against me. He’s hard and sliding his cock between my ass cheeks. He doesn’t put it in, not at first, just pokes and prods at my entrance with his cock and fingers. I…I know what’s coming, I know what he’s going to do to me. He pushes his fingers deep inside me finally, his movements growing rougher, more violent as he fucks me on his hand, and I do all I can to keep as silent as possible. I bite into the pillow to stifle my screams when he enters me. Klaus is so heavy and hot against my back, and the stretch and burn of his cock penetrating me is terrible, almost as terrible as the first time, almost as terrible as that time in the shed. But this time is different. This time I am choosing to be here. I couldn’t protect my dog, but I have to protect my knight. All my pain and sorrow, I have to bury it, bury every violation, every fear and loss, I have to bury who I am and what I could have been, I have to bury all of it for the sake of my knight. _Klaus, oh my knight! I will bury myself for you!_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Taki. A good number of readers want to slap him for his seeming stupidity and, I admit, I’ve wanted to slap him too at times. But more than that, my heart breaks to see him struggle to reconcile the conflict posed by his personal desire for happiness (i.e. Klaus) and his equally deep obligations to all others (family/nation/gods). It is a fight with no clear path to victory, and he’s losing the battle on both an internal and external front. I think it would be too simplistic to say that Taki is just a masochist at heart, although I do see that streak running through him. Even so, it isn’t a criticism of his character, merely an observation, and as much as Taki is flailing and failing in both his relationship with Klaus (on a personal level) and in escaping all the political intrigue (on a national level), he’s still hanging on tooth and nail. Give him some love, people, give him some love.


End file.
